


Gambit

by dimtraces, shadowmaat, SLWalker



Series: Taking Flight [15]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Brotherhood, Gen, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-01-05 12:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12190173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowmaat/pseuds/shadowmaat, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: Savage has spent weeks in the Temple to build up enough presence and trust to be able to reach his brother and rescue him from the Jedi.  Maul, in the meantime, never knew he had a brother.  And if that wasn't enough, it turns out that he hastwo.And that the youngest is in the hands of his former Master.





	1. Chapter 1

When Maul had come to the Temple, it was with the deep understanding that it was the only place he stood any chance of survival.  That only by surrounding himself with trained Jedi would he have any shot of making it out alive, after running away from his Master.

He knew that his coming to the Temple had been  _unexpected_.  He had been told since he was very small that the Jedi were dangerous, that they killed those not like them, that they would force him to become a bland automaton without feelings or they would just deem him too dark and end him.  Even having been shown a great deal of kindness, from Vokara Che to Master Jinn to the padawans of his age group, he still sometimes found himself waiting for the hammer to fall. But even his brush with Quinlan Vos had not turned out catastrophic, for all it had felt like at the time.

Despite  _everything_  so far, the hammer didn't fall.  And Maul had started to feel– safe?  Or perhaps comfortable?  In the Temple.

(Both of those feelings were things which he knew technical definitions for, but did not have a prior emotional frame of reference.  When did one  _know?_ When did they  _know_   for sure that they were safe?  Comfortable?  Was there ever a way to completely know that?)

Still, he always knew there was a chance his Master might find a way to reach him even here, and that he would not just be punished, but tortured slowly and murdered slowly.  That he had committed such an act of betrayal that even his Master’s investment of time and effort into his training would not grant him worth or mercy.

But as the days and weeks and months passed, he became less worried about that and more worried about how it felt when Obi-Wan’s arm brushed against his as they walked.  Or how the help he got preening his ridiculous number of feathers had started to feel good in ways which he could identify as erotic, when Obi-Wan was working down the line of his back, sitting behind him or straddling his thighs.  He wasn’t sure what to  _do_  with those feelings, and he often flipped the shower to cold to deal with the ensuing erection (which seemed to appear both for those casual touches and also just when someone turned on a damned light) instead of touching himself, but he was at least quite vividly aware of these things.

He had started joining more classes beyond botany.  The mental challenge felt good.  And Master Jinn had taught him how to care for the wide array tea plants in their quarters, including the ones Maul had been given.  Master Jinn had also been the one to sit down and modify more clothing that Maul could wear with his wings, sewing by hand in the evenings; there was something-- perhaps peaceful about doing classwork and occasionally watching Master Jinn draw thread through cloth.

Maul had found himself, more times than he could count, sitting with Issa and fingerpainting, and then trying very hard not to smile when she turned her attention from painting on flimsi to painting on  _him._ He had also somehow ended up occasionally tasked with helping her and the rest of the clan learn new skills, even beyond his mandated punishment for the incident with Vos.

Really, he had gotten distracted.  Enough to let his guard down, to let his attention shift away from survival.

The Iridonian zabrak, dressed as a flight mechanic, who had cornered him near the hangars didn’t even startle him.

“I need to talk to you,” the young adult said, urgently, searching his face with an unnerving amount of intensity.  He had an accent which Maul thought was distantly, vaguely familiar; like something he might have once heard in a dream.  His Force signature was weak, but what Maul could sense of it was–

He squinted a little, trying to puzzle it out for a moment.  But he could sense no ill intent, anyway, though the urgency was real.

“All– all right,” he answered, before looking around. “Here?”

“No.”  The zabrak reached out and took hold of his arm, just above his elbow, and gave a tug. “It’s not– it’s not something to share with others.”

Were it not for the sheer  _gentleness_  in that grip, Maul would have already been pulling back with his teeth bared, showing his canines at it.  But it  _was_  gentle, and vaguely damp; the tug was a request, if quite a nervous one.

So, Maul followed.  He didn't know what the other zabrak could possibly want, but he was mildly curious now, enough to find out.

They ended up in a stores room, filled with large shipping containers on anti-grav sleds, the kind that would be provisioned for missions for the Order.  It was quiet in there right now, no one else was around.

The stranger turned back to him and looked at him again, and again there was something in his eyes which was–

And then, just like that, Maul was looking at someone  _else._

He jumped back, startled, wings bristling and spreading wider instinctively, outwith his control.

The other zabrak no longer looked like the Iridonian zabraks that Maul had run across, with their pastel skin tones and delicate tattoos and sometimes long hair, looking almost human but for their horns.  Instead, his skin was yellow and he had bold, dark brown markings which were not a mirror to Maul’s, but were instantly recognizable nonetheless as being  _like his_.  And his Force presence was so much stronger; light and dark, dancing together, warm like a fire.  Not like Obi-Wan’s blue-fire, but like– a hearth, or a campfire.  A cookfire.

A  _Nightbrother._

Maul had never met one.  He fell into a ready stance, spooked, but he didn’t attack, mouth hanging open in his shock.

The other zabrak stared at his wings, his face crumbling into some deeply sad expression; in one of his hands was the kind of high end holo-emitter that not even the Jedi could likely afford, and in the other was some kind of red-glowing talisman which was giving off faint Force pulses.

“Oh, brother,” he said, pale eyes looking green one moment, blue another, yellow the next, “look at what they’ve done to you.”

It took Maul a moment, but then he blinked and asked, “Wait– what do you mean  _brother?”_


	2. Chapter 2

“Wait—what do you mean  _brother_?”

It  _hurt_. It wasn’t a surprise, Savage reminded himself—Maul had been a toddler when he’d been stolen away by someone that Sheev, despite all his research, hadn’t managed to identify yet. It was impossible for Maul to know his family, as impossible as it was for Savage to conjure up the lines on the face of his own father. As impossible as it would have been to guess the exact way in which adolescence had filled out Maul’s facial markings. It didn’t make the distance on that long-loved face any less heavy.

Maul had grown taller and angry and unfamiliar. Wary. He’d fought, sometimes. It showed in his posture, in the shine of his eyes. The Sisters would have liked him, if not for… There were no bruises on his face, but there were worse things than fists. Maul adjusted his stance, and the feathers rustled.

“You are Maul,” Savage said, trying to reassure himself. “I am Savage. This—” he fumbled the talisman back into his pocket and pulled out a tiny leather rancor with its left paw chewed off, and then he continued, quickly, terrified that someone might burst into the store room before he managed to convince his brother that he was  _safe_ , “This is a toy you had when you were a child. Before you were—abducted. I didn’t know you were alive, I was lied to, or I would have come to rescue you earlier.”

No reaction, or just a small one. The shoulders hitched slightly. No growl, though. It was… encouraging, at least.

Savage held out the doll, and the holo-emitter that Sheev had given him, the one he’d been warned never to lose because it was more expensive than his entire family. “Take this, brother. You can leave. Zhirin—my… identity, here, he can come and leave. He is accepted among the mechanics, and they will help you. Go to Master Dooku, he is our ally. He will help you.  _Someone_  will help you now.”

He swallowed. He’d been observing the Jedi, and they didn’t…  _look_  as threatening as Sheev had described them, but appearances deceive, his friend had warned too, and Savage hadn’t looked like a nightbrother when they’d let him in. Like a  _beast_.  _Like someone, some_ thing _, to be experimented on_ , he thought bitterly, when Maul took a step back and the feathers on those horrific wings threw up floor dust. He wouldn’t have that protection, after Maul took the holo-emitter. But Savage was strong, he’d been training for years now and all the Elders had told him that he would survive the first of his trials, maybe, and he would find his way out yet. He could fight, would fight if he had to, fight with mindless desperation, and if he didn’t manage… Maul would protect Feral, then. They would get over it. This was the way it had always been.

“Please, brother, take it.” He gave Maul his best grin, the grin that Savage’s own brother had worn when he had gone into the square and waited for the Sisters to arrive.  _You know_   _I am strong_ , the grin said. Then, he nudged Maul with the holo-emitter once more. “Take it. The Jedi will never hurt you again.”

His facial muscles must have failed.

That must have been the reason that Maul didn’t reach for freedom, why instead he just stared at the toy with hints of what looked like panic in his eyes— _why panic, why the toy, why now_ —reaching out to touch it, hand hovering for a moment before he gently took it out of Savage’s hand. He’d failed in his reassurance, and that’s why Maul left the holo-emitter untouched and just looked down at the doll, brow pinched.

“The Jedi have not hurt me.” Maul’s voice was distant. Dazed. Then, he rubbed his thumb against the leather rancor gingerly, shuddering once across his shoulders and said, “If I leave, my Master will kill me.”

“He  _won’t_ ,” Savage snarled. “ _Never_.”

Staying behind was a foolish plan. He realized this now: if Savage died in the temple, there wouldn’t be anyone to stop this  _Master_  from coming after Maul. No body to put between them. Nothing to buy him time, or to kill the monsters who’d dared mutilate Savage’s little brother. There had to be another plan. Anything. He cast his frantic eyes around the room. Could he smuggle out both of them, somehow? Sheev’s friend Dooku wasn’t able to help an undisguised Maul, or he would have done so already, he decided. But there were containers all around them, and some of them were big enough that Maul might fit inside, despite the massive  _things_  grafted onto his back. Savage knew the code to open these containers, at least some of them, and he knew by now how to use a forklift. It was one of the only things the other mechanics allowed him to do.

Savage knelt down next to the most suitable container—the biggest one, emptied of jellied eel packs two days ago, but cleaned already and the stench was almost gone—and punched in the code, and he remembered too that there was a small cargo transport vessel a few rooms down. A ship that the Temple kept for local pickup and delivery. It usually stayed on Coruscant, but it could conceivably make it into space. He’d checked it over just five days ago—or pretended to check it, to the best of his ability, because no nightbrother before him had ever had need for, or access to, any kind of ship. Its startup codes were still etched in a pocket of his mind.

He would have to invent a convincing story for transporting this specific container at this specific time of the day, but he’d been pretending to be Zhirin the mechanic for a while now. He’d been lying for weeks. He was… adequate at being false, by now.

This might  _work_.

There was a plan, now, a better plan. An idea of how to prevent his brother’s death  _which was never going to happen, not again, never,_  and it made him calm enough to remember that Maul had said other words too.  _The Jedi have not hurt me._  He’d said it with a faraway look and trembling fingers. Sheev had warned him, and he’d been right.

The Jedi’s mind tricks wouldn’t matter, Savage decided. Maul was his  _brother_. He’d taken the toy; he must have remembered  _something_. Even if he didn’t believe that the Jedi had hurt him—

_Who wouldn’t follow their brother?_

“—what are you doing?” Maul asked, behind him, as he worked on opening the container that could be their unlikely salvation. He was still holding onto the rancor.

Maul’s voice had hardened; it was so  _deep_ , now, and juxtaposed in Savage’s mind was that same face, only its markings hadn’t yet finished filling in, and the bright eyes, and the flash of teeth gnawing on his little toy. The high-pitched baby voice, asking, “What’s this? Why? What’s  _this_?” and stubby fingers pointing at every single thing they could. Savage had missed so much; he didn’t have to miss his little brother in the last stages of becoming an adult, too.

“I can get us both out,” he said, turning once the container was open. “This will work. The magic can hide us both.”

“I don’t  _want_  to leave,” Maul said, staring, fingers tightening around that toy. There was deep confusion in his eyes. Deeper wariness. “Someone—someone let you in? Dooku?” He narrowed his eyes again, thoughtfully, then took a step back. “I have to tell Obi-Wan. Or Master Jinn.” A beat. “Savage—”

It should have been good to hear his brother speak his name, and yet, it didn’t sound like a nightbrother’s name on Maul’s tongue. It stumbled, just slightly. He said it like an offworlder would, like the Jedi would have pronounced it if he’d trusted them with his given name. He said it like Sheev did.  _Savage_. The word had bristles, now, and they scratched the inside of Savage’s brain.

“Stay here. We have to sort this out,” Maul said, and he meant it.

 _No_.

“Brother, please… We have to leave,” Savage whispered, but there was no point. He knew that. Maul was going to fetch this Obi-Wan, this  _Jedi_ , and there wasn’t any reluctance in his words. If there was fear, it was fear  _of_  Savage. Not of the people who’d  _done_   _this_  to him. Sheev had warned Savage, but he knew now that he hadn’t quite believed him, or not believed him  _enough_ , and how could he have anticipatedthat Maul wouldn’t just come and leave all his enemies behind? The Jedi weren’t just stronger than any fighter he’d ever met. They were terrifying. They had warped Maul’s mind, had made him their willing slave; a power over the brains of nightbrothers that not even the Sisters wield.  _They had turned Maul against his own kin._

Sheev had warned him, but here Savage was, and Maul would tell the Jedi where to find him and they’d make him obey them. They would make him  _like_  them. They would hurt Maul again, forever. Sheev had warned him, and he’d gone and squandered the only chance to save his brother.

No—

Maul was still a few meters away from the door.

There was still a chance to get him out of the temple, even if he plainly didn’t believe that he wanted to be saved, even if Savage would have to…  _would have to fight him_ , he realized, fight the brainwashed child that he had been missing for almost every single day of his life. He’d rather die than hurt his brother, but was that just another kind of selfishness? Savage’s feelings didn’t matter. The choice was between punching him unconscious, and leaving him like this…

In the years since his abduction, Maul had grown into a tough young man. But he’d been… hurt, and he hadn’t spent his life training to be a strong warrior worthy of being a Sister’s mate. He was still shorter. He wouldn’t win.

Savage breathed in, once, twice, willing the air to stop shaking, and then he ran until he’d put himself between Maul and the exit.


	3. Chapter 3

Savage hesitated.

Maul didn’t.

Being in the Temple had softened him some – even he could tell that much – but whereas Savage held a look of anguished desperation in his chameleon eyes when he cocked back his fist, Maul had spent the first sixteen (or fifteen? fourteen? was he taken from a family when he was one? or two?) years of his life learning to react instantly, punishingly, to threats.

Savage’s head made a nauseating sound when it hit the wall.

Maul had never felt sickened by his own violence before, not while committing it.  He had only just realized some months ago that he could feel sickened by it  _after_  committing it.  But he had never before felt such an intense moment of  _wrongness_  while on the attack as he did when he smashed Savage into the wall, propelled by wiry but building strength and instinctive use of the Force.

He stared at the slumped body of the other zabrak, at the rough-worn horn laying on the ground, and started shaking.

 

The bond he had forged with Obi-Wan was a constant presence in the back of his mind, like tracers of fire tangled together.  It had been there long enough for Maul to grow accustomed to it, though he often kept his end of it tamped down, especially because he wasn’t sure yet how he felt about his own attraction to Obi-Wan, and also because it seemed like a very complicated thing to explain if Obi-Wan happened to notice Maul’s very– visceral responses to certain things.

But right now, shaken and clutching a little, chewed toy that was purported to be  _his_ , he latched onto that bond like he would a lifeline, knowing Obi-Wan would be able to find him on the other end of it, and maybe they could work out what to  _do_.

He was sitting next to Savage when Obi-Wan rushed in, face flushed from running, and then skidded to a shocked halt.

“He says he’s my brother,” Maul said, feeling Obi-Wan’s startle just as clearly as he could see it. “He says he’s my  _brother_.”

Likely without even thinking, Obi-Wan was soothing down the bond at the same time as he was reeling in his surprise.  He stared between the two of them, then at the horn laying on the ground, blood on the base of it – not much, but some – and then he moved to rest fingers light against the side of Savage’s throat.

Maul had already made sure Savage had a solid set of heartbeats, but he didn’t say that.  He just sat with his wings in an awkward sprawl, something in him that he didn’t know nor understand making him rock a little in place, back and forth, timing his breathing to the motion.

“All– all right.  All right.  What happened?” Obi-Wan asked, after checking to make sure Savage’s head wasn’t bleeding too badly from the horn that had been knocked off of it.

“He had a holo-emitter.  He said he needed to talk to me.  We came in here.  He– he turned it off and he said he was my brother.”  The words sounded a little distant; even though there was nothing at all physically wrong with him, Maul felt dizzy. “He wanted me to go with him.  He pulled back his fist and I hurt him.”

 _He can’t be.  He can’t be my brother.  He_ can’t  _be_.

Strong as their bond apparently was, it didn’t extend past feelings yet.  Maul was oddly grateful for that.  He could not get the beat of those words out of his mind, a denial he didn’t even quite understand the  _cause_  of.  As if it  _mattered._

The other beat was the sound of impact.  Maul almost groaned at the nausea, the twisting, wretched feeling in his belly, at hitting someone so hard who looked at him like that.

“I think we need to tell someone. Like Master Qui-Gon.  And he’s hurt, so we should probably also let Master Che know, as well,” Obi-Wan said, after chewing on his bottom lip pensively.

Maul  _knew_  that.  He did.  Even only months ago, the thought of  _asking_  for help would have been abhorrent to him, but so much had changed since then, so much had happened that it no longer seemed like a dismal failure on his part, to let those who knew better than him at least give him some direction.  And both of those older Jedi had been steadfast in their kindness of him.

“All right,” he managed to say, thready and breathless.

 

 

 

_Fearpanicguiltconfusionfear_

Obi-Wan dropped his fork. He knew he made excuses, but had no idea what words came out of his mouth. Maul was in trouble and needed him, that was all that mattered. He ran through the halls, following the bond that connected them. The bond they weren’t supposed to have. The bond he treasured even as he fought to keep his feelings from leaking through. Thanks to that Jed’aii artifact he now knew Maul’s body as intimately as he knew his own. Rather than helping curb his crush it only made it worse, leaving him yearning for more.

Now, however, his only concern was to stop whatever was hurting Maul. He couldn’t sense any physical pain, but the emotional trauma was almost overwhelming. He burst through the door into the storage room and skidded to a halt.

Maul was huddled on the floor, shivering, but with no apparent injuries. Another brightly-colored zabrak was laid out near him, unmoving as blood oozed from a broken horn. The words  _He says he’s my brother_  rattled through Obi’s head as he knelt to check the strange zabrak’s vitals, running more or less on autopilot.

The more of the story he got from Maul the less he liked it, although threading its way through his suspicion was guilt. If this really was Maul’s brother, shouldn’t he be happy for him? Maul had a family that cared enough to want him back! Except they hadn’t gone through official channels, had they? This so-called “brother” had used a high-end holo-emitter to disguise himself. He’d planned to sneak in and _take_ Maul rather than petitioning the Council for a visit.

This was more than he could handle alone and he said as much to Maul, chewing on his lip as his mind whirled with possibilities. Maul agreed, voice faint and wings trembling. Obi’s heart ached. Fear, horror, confusion, and need continued to whirl through their bond, mixing with less identifiable emotions.

“It’s fine, he doesn’t appear to be too badly injured.” He removed his outer robe, ripping off part of the sleeve to use as a bandage. “Head wounds always bleed more than necessary, you know.”

He was babbling, but continued to talk anyway, explaining what he was doing as he bundled up his robe and stuck it under the stranger’s head. “Yellow and brown, huh? And his markings are different, but I guess that makes sense. Each person is unique, right?”

No response, not from the unconscious stranger and not from Maul.

Once satisfied that he’d done what he could Obi turned his attention to Maul, who was rocking back and forth, clutching what looked like a stuffed toy.

“How about you? Not hurt, right?” He sat as close as he could without actually touching, offering his support and trying to convey it through their bond as well, which seemed to be wide open at the moment.

As he pulled out his comm Maul leaned into him, gripping his arm with icy fingers. Heat flashed through him and his heart hammered as fresh waves of distress washed through him. He shifted, pulling Maul closer and letting one arm slide around his waist, under the wings.

“Shh, it’s okay, Maul,” he said. “You’re safe, now. And he’ll be okay, too. Master Che will take good care of him."

“He can’t be,” Maul murmured. “He can’t. He can’t be my brother.”

Obi wasn’t sure Maul even realized he was talking. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll figure this out. It’s going to be fine.”

“He’s… he said…”

“Don’t worry about that right now.” Obi transferred the comm to his free hand and called his Master. It seemed to take forever before Qui-Gon picked up the comm.

_“Obi-Wan? I thought you were meant to be studying with Bant this afternoon.”_

“Master! How are you this afternoon?” He winced at the false cheeriness of his own voice.

Qui-Gon sighed.  _“What’s happened, Padawan?”_

“I-” Obi resisted the urge to deny it. “We could use some help. A-and perhaps Master Che could join you if she isn’t busy?”

_“Obi-Wan…”_

“We’re not hurt! But there’s a, uh, zabrak who’s lost a horn…”

“I hurt him,” Maul said, clutching the toy so hard his knuckles went pink. “My fault.”

 _“Who’s hurt? Never mind,”_  Qui-Gon corrected.  _“I’ll talk to Vokara. Where are you?”_

Obi-Wan told him, including a vague idea of what kind of injury to expect, though he didn’t want to go into too much detail over an open comm, not even within the Temple. Qui-Gon reiterated that he was on his way and signed off. Obi set aside his comm and looked at Maul, covering the hand on his arm with his own. He wasn’t used to being the warm one. It was unsettling.

“Maul?” He kept his voice soft. “Can you look at me?”

Maul lifted his head, eyes bright as he obeyed.

“It- It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

“Yes,” Maul said. “ _You’re_  here.”

 

 

 

“Don’t hurt him.”

It was the first thing Maul managed to get out of his mouth once they were in the Halls of Healing.  Before that had been a whirlwind of activity, though quiet and contained; Master Jinn arrived first and Maul was used to obeying the man at this point, so when asked, he relayed everything that Savage had said to him.

The name Dooku visibly started the Jedi, but then he shook it off and asked for the rest.  And Maul told him.

When he recounted hitting Savage, he quite nearly fell apart again.

Both masters went aside and conferred, once Master Che had come in and checked over Savage – the fourth person to do so – in a brief but quite serious conversation, low hushed tones, and Maul didn’t even try to listen, just stared at his– possibly brother and leaned against Obi-Wan, feeling cold, as if he had been cast adrift.  Water or space; he knew only that he felt cold and afloat and _lost_.

Whatever the decision was, Vokara Che went and got the grav stretcher from the emergency station down the hallway, came back, and between her and Master Jinn, they put Savage on it and there was no question as to whether Maul would go with them.  Or, for that matter, whether Obi-Wan would.

Now, Master Che was looking at him, blue eyes pinched in concern as she paused in moving over and around Savage, getting ready to run tests. “I won’t, Maul.  But you can sit with him, while I take care of him.”

Obi-Wan and Master Jinn were off to the side, discussing something.  Maul heard Dooku’s name again.  Obi-Wan felt very worried down their bond, roiling blues and sometimes a little green and sometimes a little yellow, but even worried, knowing he was  _there_  was a relief.

Maul thought he should– do something.  Fix something, maybe.  But when the tall stool was brought back for him, he just sank down on it, wings tight enough against his back that they trembled occasionally, arms tucked around his own middle like he could hold it all together.

 

 

 

“He has a concussion, but he’ll be all right,” Vokara Che said, about an hour after Savage had been brought into the Halls, and once she had indeed determined that to be a fact.  The Nightbrother on the bed was unconscious, but now it was likely the combination of strong sedative and painkiller she had given him earlier, rather than the blow to the head he had taken.  As much as Qui-Gon wished to ask questions, Vokara wanted to allow the bacta solution to run through his veins for awhile and mitigate the injury some.

It wasn’t a deadly blow or even one that would leave permanent damage, largely thanks to zabrak durability, but it was serious enough that keeping Savage asleep and still for the night would help considerably.  He would likely still have a headache and perhaps some dizziness, but the bacta would keep that from being far worse.

It might also give Maul a chance to settle, something he so clearly needed.  He had come a long way from his first night here – also spent unconscious – but it was clear he was badly shaken by this new arrival.

“Is he my brother?” Maul asked, voice thin, not taking his gaze away from Savage.

The Nightbrothers of Dathomir were difficult to find information about.  Aside that they nearly never were found off of Dathomir, and their status there as slaves – of burden, of _breeding_  – there was nearly nothing.  A handful of vague cultural notes, a truly horrific underground price-list from slavers in the Outer Rim based on size, strength, color, markings and horn patterns; supposedly, they were extremely valuable to certain parties due to their rarity.  But little else.  Even the database which had identified Maul had taken an entire night to do so, and that was likely because it had conjecture, rather then an example genetic code, to narrow it down.

But one of the few things that she did learn was that family patterns were based around a shared mother; that despite genetics, Nightbrothers measured their brotherhood on having the same mother because only twins or triplets had a shared father.

“Yes,” she answered.  And, in truth, she could see where they were related, in some of their markings, and especially in a very similar horn pattern.  Their coloring was different, but knowing that they were related made seeing those commonalities easier.  “He’s some years older than you; I can’t narrow down an exact number because he’s already fully grown.  But he’s still rather young himself.  I wouldn't put him over thirty, though I don't know enough of your kind to be perfectly certain.”

Maul hunched in a little more on himself; she had sent Obi-Wan off to get them dinner and tea, but watching Maul practically shrink made her think perhaps she should have waited. “What else–” he started, then stopped and took a breath, clearly trying to center himself before finishing, “What else can you– you tell me about him?”

It took a moment, but it seemed that the talking was helping, so she was more than willing to answer the questions.  Vokara Che looked back at Savage, taking him in. “Well, his right collarbone was broken at some point when he was younger; there’s the slightest deviation in it.  His left forearm was also broken, but it set cleanly.  He has some scars, a few that went deep; they largely look animal-inflicted, perhaps from hunting.  He shows signs of having been malnourished in both the recent and distant past.  He shows some signs of long-term deficiencies in a number of vitamins and trace minerals, but like you, he’s very tough and durable.”

“That’s why his horns are like that?”

“Partially.  But it looks like the tips were all blunted intentionally.”

Maul reached up, touching his own horns; despite being a hybrid subspecies of zabrak, the first visible place that poor nutrition tended to show up was in their horns just like their Iridonian cousins.  Not in the strength of them, but in the form and smoothness of them; the set Maul had when he had arrived were rough and uneven, much like Savage’s were, absent the intentional chips that were knocked off and sanded over.  The set Maul had now were smooth and perfectly formed, something which seemed to occasionally surprise him still, though his also had the tips rounded off by his request.

“What happens when he wakes up?  He– he seemed to think I was trapped here.”  Maul rubbed at his face, then tucked his arms back around himself.

“Well, I don’t intend to restrain him, any more than I had done so to you.  Qui-Gon and I want to hear what he has to say for himself before we act in any way to involve the rest of the Order.”  When Maul looked up at that, eyes wide, she added, “I’m not going to let anyone hurt him.  But if there is a Jedi who’s smuggling people into the Temple, then the Council will have to know.  In the meantime, he’ll probably wake up in the morning groggy and he might be sleepy for awhile, but if he has any Force training, he’ll have a hard time using it until his head clears, which will hopefully give us time to convince him that he’s safe and we mean neither of you any harm.”

Maul nodded, after a moment, and went to say something else, but then Obi-Wan came back with dinner -- routine, even if Maul couldn't stomach it yet -- and at least for a little while, things felt calm.

Vokara Che didn’t hold out much hope of them staying that way, though.


	4. Chapter 4

Savage’s mouth was dry when he woke, as if he’d gotten lost in the Thorny Forest again and had been walking for days. He was lying on something, and it was too soft. There were no ropes. His head hurt.

He was in the Jedi temple.

There was a rumble in his stomach; he’d been much too nervous to cook before he sought out his little brother, and an empty stomach makes the mind as fast as a black fly, the Elders always said. It hadn’t helped. He had revealed his identity, and begged Maul to come, and he’d failed.

Maul had punched him, instead.

(He’d grown up so  _strong_. If it hadn’t been the main reason they were both going to be tortured to death, Savage would have been proud. Well, he was proud anyway.)

Something was buzzing under Savage’s skin, and his fingers were slow when he attempted to tense his left hand. His eyes didn’t quite want to open, and when he’d managed to do it anyway, the cold bright light from wherever he was raked its nails over the inside of his brain. He’d never felt like this before, stone-heavy and floating and warm, not even during the weeks he’d spent in bed after he’d gotten in a serious fight with Brother Dudgeon over an insult to Feral that was so inconsequential he couldn’t even remember it anymore, when he’d caught an infection in the cuts on his arms. That had been fever. This was something new.

The Jedi must have started already.

There was no telling how long they’d kept him drugged and buried in sleep, but it didn’t truly matter. He was still able to think this thought, so they hadn’t invaded his brain yet—but if they had, wouldn’t they want him to think that they hadn’t? Believing he was intact could be yet another trick. It would have hurt his head to puzzle about that idea, even if Maul’s fist hadn’t introduced the back of Savage’s head to the wall. Now, he poked it once, like feeling the bleeding hole after a horn’s torn off just to make sure the absence is  _there_ , and then he shied away. It didn’t matter, anyway. He couldn’t feel his own shirt on his skin, but there was something else on him that wasn’t scratchy and that smelled clean. They had stripped him. They had looked at him, but they probably hadn’t… It was something that was going to happen to him at some point in his life anyway, it was always going to happen, and it didn’t matter either.

He was in the temple, and Maul was under the Jedi’s power, and—

Someone was breathing very close to the bed.

The someone kept breathing, and Savage kept his body as relaxed as he could and counted the beats of his hearts and feigned unconsciousness in a vain attempt to stave off the coming torture.

After a while, whoever was with him must have grown tired of the charade, or they might have believed him. He was a decent liar now, after all. A sigh, and then the careful scraping-back of a chair, and then footsteps and the door.

Savage forced his eyes open, his feet onto the floor and his body upright—the wait had done him good, and his headache had retreated slightly as well—and he looked around. There were implements all around him, things made of white plastic and metal parts and clear tubes. He didn’t know what they were for, and what kind of pain they could bring, but they were alien enough that he could imagine them being used in whatever ritual made you grow wings, and Savage’s hearts hammered against his ribcage. There were packs of some kind, too, with colored fluids in them, hanging from stands tucked away close to the wall. The headboard of the bed the Jedi had put him on had lights in it. There was nothing he could use to protect himself.

_Could he maybe turn some of the torture implements…?_

It would take too long, Savage decided.

If he stayed here, he would soon belong to the Jedi, and he wouldn’t be able to ask Sheev for a new plan to help Maul.

There was no exit but the door, behind which the breathing Jedi was waiting and which could open at any moment, but—there was also a ventilation shaft at knee-height next to the bed. He’d helped a fellow mechanic look at one, once, a chadra-fan who’d fit inside easily. Savage wouldn’t, but he had no choice. Several of Savage’s fingernails broke when he pried off the covering, but he gritted his teeth and managed to remove it.

He’d already pushed his torso inside when there was a loud click and the door opened.

A moment’s panic, frozen between dropping and fighting and trying to get the rest of the way into the vent, and then a voice—a _female_ voice—spoke up. “First, you’ll never get past the fans. And second, I only just got your little brother to leave for breakfast fifteen minutes ago. I’m sure he’ll be back shortly.”

The Jedi witch’s warning— _the Jedi’s warning, he reminded himself; he was not on Dathomir and it didn’t matter here_ —Her warning, if it  _was_  a warning and not a lie, carried no mocking undertone, or maybe Savage just couldn’t hear it. No matter. He had to agree with Her, anyway: he’d be easy prey, wriggling inside the claustrophobic wormhole of the air vent.

He was easy prey  _now_ , slowly inching backwards on his knees. He didn’t want to know what he looked like to Her, on the floor and with his head down and back turned. His face burned.

“Hello, Savage,” She said. “You sustained a serious, albeit not life-threatening concussion. You need to rest, it’s not clever to move this much when your brain is still bruised. You needn’t worry. No-one is going to harm you.” She waited for something, but Savage wouldn’t give it to her.  _All his plans had failed, but he could still…_  “We just want to know why you sneaked into the temple. You are safe here. Your little brother is, too.”

She was a blue twi’lek, he found out when he’d managed to get up, wrapped in long robes and with an unknown amulet tied to Her head-piece. She looked comfortable among the implements of the torture room, and like she was used to being respected. There was assurance, like she knew exactly where She was, and what Her purpose in life was, and like everything in this room was under Her care. She exuded calm and strength and pretend-kindness.

There was something in Her eyes, a remote but gentle curiosity that should have been ill at ease on a Woman’s face but somehow wasn’t.

_She’d probably worn the same face when She’d first looked at Maul._

Savage  _hated_  Her.

“What have you done to my brother,” he roared. “Why did you take him.  _What have you done to my brother_?”

The torture implements around him rattled.

“Savage, you need to calm down. You are safe. Maul will come back—”

He’d never used the power of the Spirits before, hadn’t known that he  _could_ , but he’d heard of them in whispers and drunken ramblings and some of the ancient stories that the Elders liked telling to children. The Spirits could move things. They were the connection between all living things, and some unmoving things, too. Their power resided in some brothers, who were able to call on them in hours of extreme need. Extreme emotion called them, and focus. Anger, pain and hatred. There were brothers who swore that they had survived their encounters with the Sisters by calling on those Spirits, and Savage hoped that he was vicious and desperate enough. In case he wasn’t, yet, he thought of the day when he’d come home and found nothing but the leather rancor with its chewed-off arm on the floor. He thought of the feathers the Jedi had grafted onto Maul’s back.

He wanted to hurt the Jedi, and something listened to him. Something gave him power.

The implements inside the room moved.

When a long-haired, bearded Jedi male came rushing into the room, the Spirits gently bumped a metal tray against his shins. It didn’t seem to stumble the man; he blinked down at it, then gestured and the tray hovered away, settling gently on a shelf. Savage startled: The Jedi commanded the Spirits too!

“I take it that means I should call the boys back?” the man asked the witch, voice quiet and calm and—not mocking, but humored.

“I think so.” She hadn’t moved yet, just watched Savage calmly, bright blue eyes seeming serene.

The man nodded and pulled a comm-link—the kind that the mechanics in the hangar used, too—off of his belt. In small blue form, a human male and—and _Maul_ answered it, crowded shoulder to shoulder. _“Master?”_ the human asked.

“Savage is awake. And quite worried for his brother,” the man said, smiling a little under his beard.

_“I’m on my way.”_ That was Maul’s voice, tense but steady. The man the human had addressed as Master nodded and deactivated the link, before looking back at Savage again. “I’m sure you can give us a few minutes for him to get back here before attacking, yes?”

Not even the Spirits would save him, Savage could see this now. They were traitors, and they obeyed the Jedi. Maul was coming back, but nothing Savage could do would save his little brother. His disguise, the old toy, his pleas to Maul. His fighting skills. The Spirits. They all had failed him. He would find no way to fight back against these Jedi. They had won the fight; they had won _him_.

They would own him now.

He would obey.

Breathing harshly, and then forcing his lungs and his brain into acceptance of what was coming— _“That’s good, Savage. Calm. Maul will be here soon,” the man said—_ he wrapped his arms around himself. Surreptitiously, he ran his tongue against the _thing_ that Sheev had stitched to the bottom of his mouth. _A last resort_ , he’d said. Organic, difficult to detect. Savage didn’t know what it was for, it didn’t look like a weapon and it wasn’t a camera, how could it be a camera when it was stuck inside him? A communicator, probably. Sheev would want to know when Savage became compromised. _Press your tongue against it, three times, if you fail._

He looked at the calm Jedi witch. At the bearded Jedi. At the comm-link.

He tried to think nothing.

Then, Savage nodded.


	5. Chapter 5

The night had been long.

Maul might have dozed once or twice, but he hadn’t moved.  Had instead sat there, staring at the sleeping form of his brother, trying to wrap his mind around the third – fourth? – huge shift in his life within a year.

This one, though, went back so  _far_.  Beyond his wings.  Beyond running to the Temple.  Beyond Obi-Wan.  Beyond Issa.  Beyond Orsis and Tosste.  It went back to a time before he had memory, before he was retreating from shocks or before that snake was thrown at him or before he was trying to see out into Mustafar’s brilliant glowing surface.

 _Who are you?_  he thought, staring at Savage’s still face.   _Why are you here?  What do you want from me?_

And,  _Who am I?_

He had never thought he was wanted.  His Master had told him he was not; that he had been discarded and that he would have died.  In the early years, his Master would praise him, but would follow it with punishment lest he forget his purpose.  In more recent years, his Master made it clear that he had been thrown away once and could be again, if he didn’t strive.

Yet here was a Nightbrother, claiming to be his kin, who so clearly  _did_  want him.  There was no deception in his pleading.  If he was wrong, if he was here for a sinister purpose, then Savage didn’t know that or believe it.  Maul could often tell such things, though never had he been able to read someone that fast before, which just lent credence to them being related.  Them being brothers.

So, he stayed the night.  In solidarity, Obi-Wan stayed with him, sitting in the chair and occasionally reaching out to stroke a wing or an arm, the bond between them glowing warm reassurance with the occasional bout of anxiety and determination.

Master Che took the IV off and healed the small wound left behind, but she had expected it to take longer for Savage to wake than it apparently did.  In the meantime, she had firmly – though gently – chased he and Obi-Wan to go and get some food from the cafeteria. 

Now, as Maul was walking back, he thought a thousand things.   _I was supposed to take Issa and help her learn how to balance on a beam after lunch.  Tonight they are making that wretched cabbage and noodle concoction in the cafeteria so Master Jinn promised to cook dinner._

_I have a brother._

_What will I tell Issa?  She’ll be disappointed if I don’t show up.  Would she like my brother?_

All the while, Obi-Wan walked with him, longer legs eating up the corridor with ease.  Maul took a few breaths before walking back into the Halls of Healing, shoulders winding up again with tension as he went to the room Savage was in.

He stepped in to what looked a little like a stand-off, Savage on one side of the room, the two Jedi masters on the other.  Outwith thought, he chewed on his bottom lip for a moment before saying the first thing that jumped into his head: “I’m sorry I hit you so hard.”

“Brother? Why are…” Savage was frowning. He looked smaller than he had yesterday; the room was in disarray, so he must have fought with Master Che and Master Jinn before Maul had arrived.  Savage didn’t look like he would fight them again, though. Mostly, he looked exhausted and scared. Maul was relieved that he’d given up fighting, even though it seemed incongruous after his urgency the day before. Still, he didn’t want Savage to get hurt again.

“You have grown so strong, brother,” Savage said. His eyes shifted away from Maul for a second, to Master Che, and then he swallowed and looked back and gave a tiny smile. “You fought well. I didn’t even see the blow coming, you were so fast. Well-aimed, too. It’s good that you learned how to fight.”

He didn’t look at all like he blamed Maul for hitting him. He looked incredibly, strangely  _proud_.

It had still been excessive, though Maul didn’t know how to relate that.  He was having a hard time knowing  _what_  to say, but the earnest way that Savage looked at him was hard to be on the other end of without saying  _something_.  He swallowed and took a breath or two, the urge to fidget creeping through his bones, trying to summon words that would ease some of that fear, maybe.  “I didn’t know I had a brother,” he finally said, hands twitching at his sides.  He was incredibly aware in that moment of that little doll in his pocket. “My Master had always told me that I was– discarded.  Thrown away.  A– a witch tried to come and get me over a year ago from Orsis, to take me back to Dathomir, but–”

Maul hated how incredibly unsure of himself he sounded right now.  He crossed his arms, hoping that it would look less self-protective than it was. “My Master said my wings were her doing.  He was going to– to cut them off, so I ran away and came here.  That’s why I don’t want to leave.”

“Discarded?! You were stolen! Brother Viscus said you were dead! I went to play ball and I came back and you were dead!”

Maul blinked at the sudden vehemence, feathers bristling. He had succeeded in making Savage less scared, but apparently, he’d made him angry; Savage was growling and advancing on the nearest person, who happened to be Obi-Wan, and Maul stepped between them. He wasn’t going to let his brother hurt his… Obi-Wan.

The movement distracted Savage, his eyes flitting back to Maul, and he growled. “But you weren’t dead, it was a lie. They took you and sold you, they sold you to the Jedi!”

Maul didn’t have to look at Obi-Wan or Master Che or Master Qui-Gon to know that they were frowning in confusion, too.  _Something was wrong here._

He squinted a little, uneasy.  “I told you, I came to the Jedi for protection. My Master was going to cut my wings off.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand,” Savage said. “Sheev told me…” He flinched. “He said that the Jedi—they experimented… A witch did… but the Jedi—what…”

Maul felt his blood drain down to his toes and he reeled back a step; if not for his skin, he would have probably visibly paled.

Obi-Wan’s hand found the center of his back, between his wings, pressing there and keeping him from reeling any further.  He stared back at the other Nightbrother, some part of his mind remaining detached enough to note that Savage seemed terribly confused.

“Sheev Palpatine of Naboo was the one who took Maul,” Master Jinn said, hands folded into the sleeves of his robe. “His other name was  _Darth Sidious_.”

It was good that one of them was able to manage words.  Maul caught the implications very quickly, and had very little trouble putting together what had happened here: His Master had sent Savage to get him.  His Master had found a way to get to him even _here_ , and had sent a hitherto unknown brother to take him back.  To–

“He was my Master,” Maul said, voice thin.  He felt dizzy.  “The Jedi didn’t do this to me.  Master said a witch did.  And when I ran, he sent– sent assassin droids to chase me.  They shot me.  The Jedi healed me.  I have– I have been here for many months now, and– and they have never harmed me.”

“I think that we should slow down a little bit,” Master Che broke in, quietly. “Savage, no one here wants to hurt you.  And Maul is right: He has been here for the better part of a year now, and if we  _were_  hurting him, would he be allowed to roam where he wanted?  Would he look so healthy?  Be so strong?  We need to sort out what happened, and how you– came to be here, and how you know Maul’s former master.  Will you sit down and just talk with us?”

“Some breakfast wouldn’t go amiss, either,” Obi-Wan chimed in, a little dryly, though not unkindly.  Even as he spoke, he was stroking Maul's back soothingly. “That’s three meals Maul’s skipped now because of all of this, and two and a half that I haven’t had, so perhaps we can talk over food?”

Savage didn’t appear to have heard Obi-Wan at all, or Master Che, for that matter. “Sheev was—but—but he said… the Jedi… my brother…” he mumbled, and then he collapsed in on himself and only after a moment Maul realized that it was his Force presence that had shrunk, the one that Maul was so weirdly attuned to, and that Savage’s physical posture hadn’t changed at all. His brother was devastated, that much was obvious — a chaotic mix of genuine terror and icy relief at once — and it seemed Maul’s instinct that there had been no deception in his pleading, al least, that _he_ didn’t _know_ of his sinister purpose, had been right.

His instinct that there  _was_  a sinister purpose had been right.  _Master was--_

The thought that followed was nearly enough to take him off his feet again.

Even in the months he had been here, and slowly detangling the lies from the truths of his life so far, Maul's Master remained larger than life.  Larger than death.  Too powerful to fight, too powerful to survive, too  _smart_ for the likes to Maul to outwit.  The one time his Master apparently did not know something was the appearance of his wings.  But otherwise, even now, he was a very large and very cold shadow that loomed outside of these walls.

But this time--

Master had  _failed_. He’d sent Maul’s brother to lure him out of the temple or drag him if he had to (the baseless insistence that the Jedi were hurting him made sense now, what better lie to tell?), but Savage was an amateur who’d revealed everything in heartbeats. Master was after him, but Maul had allies now. Friends. Obi-Wan.

They could do something about this.  They could take advantage of this-- this error in judgement--

Savage would tell them everything. He was looking at Maul again, as if Maul was the only real thing left, and he didn’t listen to anyone else but he  _was_ listening to Maul.

Maul repeated Obi-Wan’s suggestion, holding back a shiver by force of will alone, trying to sound confident instead of-- whatever he was now. “Let’s talk over food.”


	6. Chapter 6

When Obi-Wan walked into the cafeteria the server simply nodded and asked how many boxes he needed. He told them, making sure to note the special provisions Vokara Che had suggested before carefully excusing herself.

While he waited he tried to untangle some of his feelings. The past day or so had been fraught with revelations, confusion, questions, and concerns. It was a lot to take in and if he was being honest with himself he wasn’t sure he was doing a very good job of it.

He knew his biggest concern now should be the return of Palpatine- of  _ Darth Sidious, _ \- the man that Maul still had nightmares about. The Sith Lord who had manipulated and tortured him from infancy, trying to shape him into an apprentice. The pulsating nightspider at the heart of a poisoned web who had been driven out of the Senate only to disappear without a trace. Obi-Wan had always known they hadn’t heard the last of him, but he’d hoped somehow that it wouldn’t be for a good long while yet. It hadn’t even been a year yet and now… now he might lose everything.

He accepted the boxes of food with a smile he couldn’t feel and made his slow way to the Room of Colors and Light. Master Jinn and Healer Che had decided that Savage needed somewhere calming to recover while the rest of them needed a secluded spot to discuss what to do next.

Savage. Maul’s  _ brother. _ There were bigger things to worry about- and he  _ was  _ worried because there was no way in the myriad hells he was going to let that Darksider bastard anywhere near Maul ever again- but what his mind kept circling back to was that Maul had a brother. One who wanted him back. The circumstances of his arrival were shrouded in the Dark, but his motivations were still pure. If, after all of this, Maul chose to leave with his brother, there’d be no reason to stop him.

Obi-Wan wasn’t aware of the way people stepped out of his path. He couldn’t feel that the lines of his face were set in a deep frown. He stalked through the halls with grim determination, doing his best to heed the advice of his Master and release his feelings into the Force. Jealousy was unbecoming in a Jedi. He needed to be better than this, for Maul’s sake if nothing else.

Entering the Room of Colors and Light helped. It was designed to be peaceful and was imbued with a sense of calm. Initiates were often brought here to help them learn how to meditate. Obi-Wan could remember dozing off here a few times, himself. It was more Maul’s domain these days. He’d taken to gardening like a seed dropped in soil and the room bloomed with his attention. 

He rounded a bend and found his Master seated on a bench under a blueblossom tree with Maul and Savage nearby. The latter two were leaning close, deep in discussion. Maul’s wings seemed relaxed except for the occasional tremble along the primaries brushing the ground. Obi-Wan took a deep breath and exhaled his misgivings before he approached. His bond with Maul was still more open than usual and he didn’t need to taint an already bad situation.

“Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon smiled at him. “Thank you so much for bringing dinner. It seems that it’s been a while since Savage has been able to eat properly.”

Savage’s gray-green eyes locked on his for a moment and Obi-Wan could feel the weight of distrust and fear behind them. It was a painful echo of the way Maul had regarded everything when he’d first woken up in the Temple and he felt some of his unease dissolve, replaced by concern and determination. Savage needed allies and friends. He was going to do everything he could to help. 

“Obi.” Maul stood, his own smile showing strain as he retrieved two of the meal boxes and utensils. Their fingers brushed and he felt the familiar wash of warmth between them.

“We’ll get through this, Maul,” he said, reaching out to stroke a wing. “All of us. Together.”

  
  
  
  
  


The—the human boy, he sat down then, on Maul’s other side, and Savage was grateful for the short reprieve in conversation. The chance to order his thoughts. Maul seemed grateful, too, if for different reasons. When the boy showed up and touched Maul with obvious trust and familiarity, he brightened. It was a joy to see, and painful.  _ Together _ . A promise, and the boy cared about Maul; that, or he was a good liar. Savage still didn’t know his name.  _ Obi, or was that a greeting used off Dathomir? _ The question for it, if Savage would ever have dared ask such a thing of his captors—of Maul’s saviors—in the wake of mentioning Sheev’s name it had been swallowed by shock and confusion and the only thing that mattered now. Maul’s terror.

_ “He was my Master.” _

That had been the first words, when Savage had revealed who’d sent him, but many had followed. _Sheev Palpatine of Naboo was the one who took Maul. When I ran, he sent—sent assassin droids to chase me. He wants to kill me._ _He hurt me._ Maul had explained everything to Savage, in halting words, and occasionally the Jedi with the hair on his face, Qui-Gon, had added something. Had asked a question.

_ Sheev wants _ —

_ He was _ —

Nothing made any sense. Sheev— _ Maul’s abuser, his abductor! _ —he had warned Savage of the mind tricks that awaited him, should he get caught, but Savage had never expected the Jedi's brainwashing to be so difficult to follow or understand. So arduous. So filled with words. He’d imagined a spell wrapping around his thoughts and locking them down. He hadn’t imagined Maul talking to him, or this garden. He’d never have imagined any garden as luscious as this. It was just confusing.

Maul sounded normal. He must have been talking to Savage for a quarter-hour, before the food and current short airbreak, and there hadn’t been any sign he wasn’t. He didn’t sound brainwashed.  _ “How would you know what is normal for Maul, you never watched him grow up,” _ something deep in his skull asked and it sounded like… him, but Savage didn’t listen to it. Maul was his brother. Maul was talking to him, not a puppet. He’d know; somehow, he’d know.

Wide eyes, thin voice. A body language that spoke of terror and pain, still, even though he had the bearded Jedi by his side and his young friend, now, too. Even though he took a fork, now, and speared one of the things that his friend had brought and ate it, he seemed deeply shaken.

_ “He was my Master.” _

Savage had almost delivered his little brother back to a man who had  _ hurt  _ him.

One that Maul had only escaped because of these horrible, flicking wings, because the man who owned and hurt him wanted to tear them off, and only that had been too much. Only that terror had saved him, and then the Jedi.

The smell of food, whatever it was that Maul’s friend had brought over in boxes and sat on the ground between them, it just made Savage gag when the bearded Jedi tried to put some of it in Savage’s hand. He didn’t throw up stomach acid, but it was a near thing.

_ He’d almost brought Maul to Sheev. _

Maul feared this man, and the details he’d revealed were so horrendous that Savage couldn’t touch their shapes inside his mind without bile in his throat and couldn’t stop trying to touch them, and Savage had almost served him up for more torture. In all his decade-long dreams of his little brother’s survival, of finding a dead baby miraculously playing in his crib or a teenager joining him for the hunt, he’d only ever seen himself as protector. Never as someone who’d  _ kill _ —

“Savage?” It was the old man, thankfully. Savage didn’t know how he could look his brother in the eye ever again. “Are you sure you you don’t want to eat? There’s not much left now.” A twinkle in his tired-looking eye, but Savage didn’t know what it was for.

He shook his head. “Sheev took me to a house on Coruscant when we arrived,” he said instead, because it was better to continue the explanations interrupted when Obi had arrived than vomiting on the clean green lawn. “It was… big.”

“Can you describe it more closely?” Maul asked, eyes sharp. “Were there spires? Was it round?”

“I don’t… think so?” He could tell apart every species of plant that grew on Dathomir, but the Coruscanti cityscape had been lost in a blur of awe. Shamefully, Savage had been much too excited and scared by the ships zipping by, and by how far from the ground they were, and so utterly impressed by the lack of collisions in the teeming swarm of sentient-made gleaming traffic, and he hadn’t paid any attention to where they were going, or looked at any buildings. They hadn’t been moving, after all, and a hunter learns to fade out the trees and only see the bird. Now, he bitterly regretted his uselessness.

“The windows, from inside. Were they long? Oval? No, but he wouldn’t… he must have foreseen a decent chance of your failure. He wouldn’t have brought you  _ there _ . I was only allowed in that apartment of his once.” Maul’s wings quivered, and then he looked up again. “Do you remember anything else?”

“The floor was red,” Savage said.

“The floor is always red,” Maul replied, face squinched in distaste. “It’s his favorite interior decoration decision.”

“Does it—matter?” Obi threw in.

The hairy Jedi nodded. “Savage, you said Palpatine gave you the holo-emitter and told you to lure Maul out of the temple. Where were you supposed to bring him?”

“I was… there is an orphanage, reachable by foot. Not far from here. He gave me a map. It’s—” Savage patted the pocket he’d put it in, and only found the thin soft garment from the room with the implements.  _ Oh.  _ He’d forgotten that they’d stripped him. He’d—for a while now, he hadn’t thought of them as enemies. “It’s in the left front pocket of my trousers.”

“It can wait. I’ll tell Vokara to look for it later,” the old Jedi said.

“Don’t activate it. Mas—my former Master has probably bugged it. He’ll know his plan has failed.”

The plan. The plan to use Savage to lure out his little brother from the apparent safety of the Jedi Temple, because Sheev wanted to  _ kill  _ him. The plan that would have succeeded, if Maul wasn’t a fighter skilled and clever enough to take out his would-be doom. That plan. Gloomily, Savage looked at his hands.

  
  
  


Issa and Zip seemed to have the room to themselves. Technically she was supposed to be learning about balancing from Maul, but he hadn’t shown up and trying to teach herself had gotten boring. Zip was already dozing under one of the sunning lamps and she knew Master Vrik would probably want them to return to the creche rather than being out here on their own, but that would be boring, too. Besides, they were big enough to be trusted on their own! And there was still a chance Maul might show up so it was better to be here than to risk missing him.

She adjusted the straps of her harness and glanced back to make sure her wings looked OK. This was another reason she’d been looking forward to her lesson: today she’d intended to try it with the wings Maul had given her for her birthday! Just running around with them she could feel how it changed her balance and actually trying to stay on the beam with them weighing her down proved to be very tricky. She had about a million questions to ask Maul about it whenever he showed up, but for now she’d switch to flying lessons instead! Not that she could really fly, of course. She knew that; she wasn’t a baby! But she could  _ pretend _ to fly and that was almost as good.

Zip was still stretched out with a tooka sleeping on his chest, so Issa checked her surroundings, took a deep breath, and started running. She could feel the wind moving through her feathers and it was glorious! Squealing with delight she raced down a small hill, adding an occasional hopping step along the way. It almost, almost felt like the wings were actually lifting her off the ground! She spotted a flash of color under one of the trees and veered towards it.

“Maul! Maul, look! I’m flying!” 

She took another running hop. Maul stood to face her and she could see other figures behind him; Obi-Wan and maybe Master Jinn. At this point, though, she was running too fast to stop, even with her wings dragging the air behind her. She flung herself at him and as she’d known he would, he caught her.

“Issa! What are you doing here? Where’s Master Vrik?”

“Look!” She wriggled in his arms. “I brought my wings to help with balancing lessons! They really mess things up, don’t they? How do you manage? And they’re heavy! But it’s so wizard when you’re running fast and it feels like you’re flying! Did you see me? Have you ever done that? Oh.” 

She finally caught sight of the additional figure in the group, a strange yellow and black Zabrak, kinda like Maul but without any wings. She stilled as Maul set her back on the ground, hitting the lever to make her wings retract.

“Sorry,” she said, trying to use him as a shield and peering at the newcomer at the same time. “I didn’t realize you were busy.”

Had she messed up? Was this an important Jedi meeting? But why would they be meeting in the Room of Colors and Light? And why now? The other zabrak looked scared, which was weird. What was there to be scared about? 

“Hi, I’m Issa!” She gave him a small wave and then tilted her head way back to look up at Maul.

“I’m not in trouble, am I? Zip came with me and I was waiting for my lesson but then he fell asleep and I got bored and, uh, sorry. I can go back to flying? If that’s better?” She stole a glance at Master Jinn, who was very old but not half as fussy as some of the Masters she’d met.

“Or I can stay? Maybe I can help! I’m good at helping!” She grinned up at Maul and tried not to bounce on her toes. Maybe if she showed she could be serious he’d let her stay. This looked a lot more interesting than balancing lessons!

  
  
  


  
Savage had looked like he was in shock.

Months of crechelings, oddly, had given Maul the ability to slip into a calm, patient mindset that he hadn't even been aware he was remotely capable of.  Patience, regardless of much of his training, was something he always struggled with, had always felt elusive.  Even now, it wasn't perfect -- his scrambling attempts to actually _lead_ Archix Clan without Master Vrik had proven as much -- but it came much easier than he ever would have thought possible.

_Especially_ right now, it wasn't perfect.  He still felt his own thrills of fear and shock run through him, still sometimes felt the desperate loops of reeling thought, but he was able to rally some of that mindset to handle Savage more gently and certainly, even though Savage wasn't a crecheling.  He was so lost, though, that Maul thought he probably warranted some of that same level of care.

It was as Savage was looking ready to shut down, clearly too nauseated and nervous to eat, that Issa came barrelling towards them.

Maul hadn't forgotten their lessons, but those lessons had necessarily fell by the wayside.  Still, he felt a not-unfamiliar jolt of joy at seeing her and when she launched herself at him, he caught her.

Somehow, despite everything, the grin he gave when she launched into her rapid fire questions was the first one he'd managed since the start of this that didn't have shadows lurking at the edges.

"You're very good at helping and I might have something to do for you in a moment," he said, when she pretty much automatically reached up to grab his hand, still smiling some.  He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze and bit his lip briefly before introducing, "Issa, this is my brother, Savage.  Savage, this is Issa."

It wasn't easy not to stumble over the word _brother_ , not because there wasn't truth in it, but because it was still so strange and different.  Still, Maul didn't; spoke it as the fact it ultimately was, both for Savage's sake and for Issa's.

Issa gasped aloud, staring with her wide black eyes at Savage with her mouth hanging open.  Savage, for his part, was staring just as wide-eyed back at Issa; it seemed, for the moment, to surprise the other Nightbrother out of his internal misery.  It wasn't a light and happy look, but it was-- softer and surprised.

Issa swung her look back up at Maul and gave him a jerk on his hand. "How come you didn't tell me you had a brother?" she demanded, sounding so offended that it startled Maul into laughing.  A minor miracle if there was one.

"I only just found out myself."  How much he needed that little laugh couldn't be described. "You're the very first person to know outside of the grown-ups and Obi-Wan," he added, just to soothe her offense and soften his own laughter.  He had to chew down a broader grin when Obi-Wan huffed at not being included in the _grown-up_ part.

Issa gave him a long pout, but it dissolved at the last bit and then she looked back at Savage again, declaring (unsurprisingly), "I'm going to be his padawan someday, I need to know these things.”

Savage opened his mouth, gaping some, though Maul was heartened to see something that looked like the barest hint of a smile tugging at his face. "I-- it's good to-- to meet you, Issa."

Obi-Wan and Master Jinn were both quiet at the moment, finishing the last of their own lunch, but watching the scene play out.  Maul could feel the pride radiating off of Obi-Wan, despite his faux annoyance of before, and he thought he could even feel it from Master Jinn.  It lent him some composure he had been missing for awhile now, anyway, enough that he said, "I have a little job for Issa; I'll be back in a moment."

Issa only tended to kick about jobs she felt were beneath her; cleaning the sleep room, for example.  But she was always eager to help, and Maul happened to have a perfect job for her to help them and also give them time to finish their discussion without her listening in on it.  She waved to Savage and then Obi-Wan and Master Jinn and walked with him back up the hill; once they were up there, Maul crouched down.

"He feels--" Issa started, then rubbed over her own arms, clearly not able to explain what her nautolan sensitivity was telling her.  Though Maul was glad her lessons on tact from various sources had taken root.

Maul had to take a moment to think about how to explain it.  "Right before this, someone hurt him," he finally said, and tapped the side of his head to illustrate that it wasn't a physical wound.  Issa had certainly learned how to interpret that gesture; it had been necessary, given Maul's occasional troubles, for her to grasp that sometimes people could get-- sick, or hurt, in the invisible ways too.  Maul doubted he ever would have even considered it such, until he was put more and more into responsibility over children, who could sense that things were wrong even when they didn't understand how.  Even if he didn't quite get what was-- wrong with him, or if he could consider himself wounded or just justifiably paying for his past, he wouldn't dream of interpreting it that way for _them_.

Issa stared back at him with her eyes wide and shiny, and then nodded solemnly. "I can do any job you tell me, will it help him?"

"Not with that part, but he isn't feeling well, his stomach is upset."  Maul glanced down the hill and wasn't surprised to see his brother watching them, then looked back at Issa. "Do you remember the plants I showed you?  The tall grasses with the roots, specifically?"

"Ginger."  Issa nodded again, this time brightly.

"Right.  I want you to pull one section of it and pick some of the wild mint.  Then, take them to Master Vrik and ask him to make a big thermos of tea with that and honey in it and bring it back," Maul said. "He'll know how to mix it up correctly.  That will help Savage's stomach settle and maybe make him feel better."

Issa bounced on her toes and threw her arms around his neck, and Maul hugged her back a little tighter than normal before letting her go.

It was only after she ran off to do as she was asked that he let out a slightly shaky breath.  He watched her go, regathering his composure despite the anxiety that was still squirming unpleasantly under his breastbone, and headed back downhill to the others.  Savage's jaw was shivering when Maul got back; he looked somehow more destroyed, though-- also a little more openly so than before.  Less like he was trying to keep it behind some wall of stoicism.

"I didn't know," he said, plaintively, looking down to where he was twisting his hands in his lap, rocking a little in place just like Maul had done the day before, barely a motion but noticeable. "I didn't know," he added, voice thick.  "Maul--"

Maul could almost feel the tension in the air increase; the sense of foreboding.

Savage's shoulders hunched in; maybe he felt it too. "I left Feral on his ship.  Our-- our brother.  I left Feral on his ship."  A beat. "Help me get him.  Please."


	7. Chapter 7

The revelation of a second brother came as less of a shock than the first.

Maul felt a little bit numb after the initial panic attack; as if he had reached the very end of his ability to be rattled by things now and only could take them as they came.

He had left Savage with Master Jinn and Issa, who had brought back a thermos of tea which would hopefully allow Savage to get something on his stomach and perhaps settle it.  Maybe settling his stomach would help settle his nerves, as well; none of what was going to come next was going to be easy, and having their heads as clear and sharp as possible was the only way they were going to be able to save Feral.

Maul didn't even know the child, but the moment he found out that his former Master had a small Nightbrother, his own past hit him hard enough that he had to break away from everyone, keeping his composure by some major effort of will, and once he was alone in a little-used side hall, he ended up tucked in a corner, shaking and trying to remember how to breathe past the panic lodged firmly in his chest, wings around himself like a shield.  He could feel Obi-Wan's concern and questioning down their bond, but he needed some time alone, even if only ten minutes or so, just to-- to-- to fall apart and then pull himself back together.

He didn't know the child, but if they didn't save Feral, he knew what his former Master would _do_.  He knew the terrible things that would follow because he lived through them himself.

Once Savage had said that, everything took on a new sense of urgency.  They didn't even have a _plan_  yet, but it was clear they couldn't do this without help; Master Jinn had called Vokara Che and apparently his first padawan, who was in-system, and Obi-Wan had jumped up to go and find his friends to see if they could help.

After Maul managed to re-armor himself in composure, he went after Obi-Wan.

He came around the corner just in time to find Obi-Wan talking with Vos and Bant.  "--currently off with his master, but I'm in," Vos was saying, looking more serious than Maul had ever seen him.

"You'll need a healer," Bant added, voice quivering just a little. "I'll go too."

The feelings rolling off of Obi-Wan were intense -- relief and affection and _fear_  and anxiety -- and Maul tried to reassure even though he was feeling all of those things himself.  When he came up to stand with Obi-Wan, he wasn't the least bit surprised when Obi-Wan threaded their fingers together and squeezed.

"We'll get your baby brother," Vos said, forcing a grin and reaching out to clap Maul on the arm. "Let me go grab my things," he said to Obi-Wan, before turning and running down the corridor.

Bant followed, probably to do the same.  Maul decided then and there that whatever mistake Quinlan Vos might have made with the alcohol and stupidity of before, his willingness to throw himself into genuine danger without more than a skeleton of information for the sake of Maul's brother more than made up for it and then some.

Obi-Wan's voice was thready, as he gave a tug on Maul's hand and started in the direction of the hangar.  "Let's go meet Feemor."

  


 

 

Maul had learned some things about Obi-Wan's and Master Jinn's lives before he had ended up with them; he knew that there had been quite a bit of friction due to someone named Xanatos, who had turned to the dark and who ultimately died because of it, and because of Xanatos, Master Jinn had not always done right by Obi-Wan.  That he had allowed himself to cause Obi-Wan hurt and confusion because he had been unfairly judging his new padawan off of his old one.  Obi-Wan hadn't been the one to tell him that last part, though; Master Jinn had, only a month ago, right after Maul was officially declared an adult.

Maul knew that Master Jinn intended it to be something for him to learn from; that even a Jedi Master could make serious mistakes and have to live with them and learn from them, and presumably ultimately forgive themselves for them.  It was a lesson out of Maul's reach, but he found himself hugging Obi-Wan more often after that, even if sometimes the gesture felt awkward to him thanks to only learning it since coming to the Temple.

Feemor had apparently been before Xanatos and was now a Jedi Master, between padawans, and both Obi-Wan and Master Jinn spoke well of him.

"I-- when I found out about him, I eventually called and we talked.  Qui-Gon had disowned him after Xanatos, and we were both-- I don't know.  I guess kindred spirits," Obi-Wan explained now, as he led them to the hangar, fingers still wound through Maul's.

It was hard to imagine Master Jinn causing such grief; he had always been very careful with Maul.  His own unsettled confusion must have been felt down their bond, because Obi-Wan squeezed his hand harder and added, "He's a lot better now.  He'd been trying before you came, but after-- you brought out the best in him, I think."

Maul nodded back, though he couldn't jam that understanding into his head; the thought that he could bring out the best in _anyone_  was outlandish to him.

Obi-Wan didn't let go of his hand until they were at the hangar.  Just unloading a ship was a blond man with short-cropped hair; older, though by no means old, and dressed more like a farmer might than a Jedi Master.  When Obi-Wan shouted his name, Feemor spun around; when Obi-Wan launched himself into the other Jedi, Feemor caught him and they hugged fiercely.

If brotherhood could be called a feeling, that was probably very much what it felt like; it was radiating off of Obi-Wan.

It was while watching them as they talked rapidly, with the intimacy born of a shared master and shared pain, that Maul had his first inkling of how they could even _get_  to Feral.  When he did think it, he wondered a little why he had not thought of it before, especially since it was so obvious.

If his former Master wanted him so badly, then perhaps all they had to do was _give_  Maul to him.  Savage could pretend -- if he could keep his head long enough -- that he had succeeded in his mission, taking Maul with him, and once they had a location of some type, then Maul could use his Force bond with Obi-Wan to bring them in, too.  Since it was highly unlikely that his Master would not shield against communication devices or tracking devices not of his own design.

It was a solid enough plan.  Maul would tell them when they met back up with Master Jinn.

Hopefully, by then, the cold sweat he broke into would have dried.  
  


 

 

A Master’s job is to teach and to guide his padawan into becoming the best Jedi he can be. Qui-Gon Jinn had always thought he was doing a good job, but learned the hard way that sometimes even the best intentions fail. Sometimes it’s the teacher who needs to learn a lesson.

He’d failed with Xanatos. That loss had almost caused him to fail with Obi-Wan as well. He’d come so close that sometimes he still woke up in a cold sweat with the ripples of might-have-beens leaking from his dreams. He’d realized it and tried to correct it and he’d been starting to find his balance again with his padawan when the Force threw him a curveball in the shape of a runaway Sith apprentice in need of shelter and understanding.

The past still weighed on him, but Qui-Gon rose to the occasion, redoubling his efforts with Obi-Wan and welcoming Maul into his home. In some ways it almost seemed like a chance at redemption; he’d lost one padawan to the Dark, but now he was helping save another from the same fate. Not that Maul was his padawan, of course. Not officially. The Council remained divided on the very nature of Maul’s existence within the Temple; there was no way they’d allow him to become a Jedi. Unofficially, however, Maul was a second padawan in every way that mattered. And somehow he’d learned a lesson no child should have to learn.

_“Absolutely not, Maul.” Qui-Gon pounded the back of the couch, startling the padawans seated there. “I will not allow you to act as bait for a Sith Lord!”_

_“It’s the only way to get through his guard.” Bright golden eyes stared back at him, unflinching. “He has my brother. I have to do this.”_

Qui-Gon had fought against it, as had Savage and Obi-Wan, whose fear and concern prickled through their bond. Despite their arguing, though, they’d been unable to come up with a better plan. Vokara Che, lekku twitching, had come around to Maul’s side. Feemor had pointed out that Maul would hardly be sent into the rancor’s den alone and Quinlan Vos had been full of false bravado about their chances. Savage, anxiety and guilt coming off him in waves, had taken his brother’s side; an inevitable development. Bant Eerin had voiced her own objections before agreeing. Soon Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were the only ones left.

_“I don’t like this,” Obi-Wan said, twining his fingers with Maul. “I can’t lose you.”_

_“Then make sure you don’t.” Maul’s teeth gleamed in an expression that wasn’t quite a smile._

_Qui-Gon felt the weight of something pass between them and then Obi-Wan bowed his head._

_“Very well. But if anything happens to you, I’ll kill you myself.”_

_“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”_

All eyes had turned to Qui-Gon. Time was running short and a child’s life hung in the balance, but he knew it wasn’t the time for rash decisions and so he’d called for a break so he could meditate.

If he’d been hoping that the Force would provide a better answer than the one presented already then he would have been disappointed. The Force was rarely that straightforward or easy to comprehend and at the moment just finding the balance within himself in order to drop into meditation was proving to be more difficult than it had in years. Thoughts kept intruding, warring for his attention. Did he honestly believe that _any_ plan could work? That he and a handful of others that included far too many padawans could go up against a Sith Lord and win? Was it right to defy the Council by not telling them anything? Except he knew their answer would be to let the boy die.  Or, if they did decide to act, it would be too late and he had no doubts they would have considerably less trouble sacrificing Maul for the so-called greater good.

The faster he tried to push his fears out into the Force, the faster more crowded in. What if the Council found out and used this as an excuse to get rid of Maul? They were unhappy enough with his existence. If they thought his presence in the Temple might be an active threat to their way of life they’d have no problem sacrificing him, mission or no. Sacrifice was, after all, built into the foundations of the Order. Every Jedi knew they might one day be called upon to sacrifice themselves for the greater good and that they should go willingly. Just as Maul was willing to do now. Just as Obi-Wan had tried to do multiple times. What kind of lesson was that to instil in children? They had their whole lives ahead of them and there would always be more opportunities to help the greater good. Sometimes sacrifices were necessary to save lives, yes, but it should be a personal choice, not something drilled into you from childhood.

Qui-Gon pushed those thoughts, too, into the Force and concentrated on the question at hand. Was using Maul as bait to trap a Sith Lord the right thing to do? Could they pull this off if he did? The universe would certainly benefit if they managed to destroy the Sith and he was sure that Maul himself would rest easier knowing his former Master would never hurt him again. Was it as simple as that? He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, seeking out the Unifying Force.

He was not like Mace Windu, able to sense the Shatterpoints, but he could feel the building pressure of possibilities balanced on this moment. This could go well for everyone or it could destroy all he held dear. More than that, however, he kept seeing one thing over and over: Maul, smiling. Maul smiling as he sat in the sun or as Obi-Wan teased him while preening his wings. Maul smiling as he was swarmed by younglings or as he got one of his modified katas correct. Whatever dread hung over them now, it was worth it to see those smiles, to know how far he’d come in so short a time and all he’d done to deserve every moment of happiness.

Qui-Gon took another breath, breathing out at a slow count. He opened his eyes, enjoying this last moment of stillness. He’d made his decision.

 

 

 

The comm system blinked discreetly on the heavy red desk in the small, middling-height flat not far from the Jedi Temple that served as his refugium ever since he’d been chased from his hard-won political office, and Darth Sidious smiled. Finally. At long last, he was going to catch himself a rat. It was a slippery thing, the rat; for months now he had watched it lounge around and gorge itself on the varied foods inside the Jedi Temple, always just slightly out of reach. He had studied surreptitious holograms of the rat sent by his associate, and he had seen its feathers grow glossy and its posture slowly relax.

He had seen it smile. Never in his life had he ever seen young Maul this carefree and happy.

It had firmed his decision: _Maul will have to die_. The spontaneous sprouting of wings, Sidious could have tolerated. Their removal could even have served as a valuable lesson. The boy’s terror at the idea and his subsequent flight, too, he could have grown to forgive. The apprentice had been a malleable thing, after all; as a child, he had often shown undesirable behavior that he’d since learnt to discontinue, and Sidious had admittedly enjoyed molding him. He would have enjoyed the corrections.

Involving the Jedi: the disregard for the necessary secrecy the Sith toiled under had irked Sidious, but even that could have been folded into new plans and made fruitful.

The smiles, though, had pointed to a deeper problem still.

The smiles had signed Maul’s death warrant.

They had _proved_ the experiment’s failure.

The experiment’s objective had been simple, yet ingenious. Sidious had sought to create the perfect Sith apprentice; obedient, lethal and merciless. To this end, he had decided not to bother with any of the candidates already steeped in darkness that he knew, but instead, to train a child from infancy. He’d train a boy who’d never learn to relate to any people, and to himself only as the tool of another’s will. A boy who was never going to know love except in its ultimate form: as the utter dependence on his Master. Dependence because he sought knowledge, further power, reprieve from pain. Also, dealt out rarely enough to keep its sweetness: he would obey because he needed his Master’s praise.

He’d be the perfect Sith, or at least: the perfect Sith _apprentice_ . So utterly dependent on his Master that he would never seek to replace him. Obedience without threat. A dependable tool. And yet, for Sidious himself, despite the usual path that Bane had set out and all Sith Lords thereafter had tread: for Sidious, immortality. Maul had been his innovation. He’d been the ultimate improvement, a corrective for an ancient flaw. _One to embody the power, the other to crave it? An apprentice who would ultimately usurp his master’s place?_ Darth Sidious certainly did not intend to die in the furtherance of another’s career.

Maul had been the perfect test subject. He’d been so promising.

And now—these smiles. These pathetic, trusting, happy smiles. All the studies on childhood isolation and abuse, all his hopes and expectations had failed him. Maul had been supposed to be maladjusted, disturbed, just functional enough to still be usable. He had not been supposed to be able to relate to other beings.

He certainly hadn’t been supposed to imprint, of all things, on a Jedi youngling!

Neither had Sidious, in all honesty, foreseen the fact that Padawan Kenobi would return the fumbling awkward affections. That he wouldn’t mind the attentions of a Sith, no matter how pathetic said Sith had turned out to be.

Consequently, for a long time, Sidious had toyed with the idea of involving Kenobi in Maul’s death. The way that Maul followed him around like an ugly mongrel duckling would its mother could have been very useful indeed, if, say… Kenobi had failed to return from one of his missions outside the temple, only to comm Maul and tearfully relate the fact that he was going to die a miserable lonely death if Maul ever spoke a word of it, or failed to give himself up. Maul would have agreed, too! The former apprentice really was that useless.

Several factors had convinced Sidious to desist from that course of action. Firstly, it was simply too early to draw the Jedi’s attention, and while they would not severely miss a lost chimeric darkside child—some voices, Dooku had reported, even questioned his existence within the Temple Walls—an abducted Padawan would have drawn their notice, for a while at least. There was also Dooku to consider: another loss in his lineage might make the man volatile, and Sidious hadn’t yet determined which use of the man he preferred.

Moreover, Kenobi’s infatuation with Maul would be utterly wasted in such a plan. His obvious attachment, that likely extended far beyond what Jedi dogma considered appropriate… To have Maul disappear without a trace would induce grief in the young Padawan, madness, possibly. With a few careful pushes, it could turn him into another darkside acolyte, or at the very least, an amusing diversion.

Luckily, Sidious had soon found a suitable alternative. Maul’s family.

The comm system blinked. Savage had decided to make contact.

Sidious pressed another button, a sign that he was ready now to receive the man’s communications, and for Savage to move himself to an unobserved space so he could use the holocomm that Sidious had furnished him with. Mere minutes later, the comm came alive.

“Sheev,” whispered and urgent, and then he apparently figured out how to turn the holocomm correctly and came into view. “Sheev. I—I found him. I found Maul.”

“Well done, my boy. I knew you would succeed. I am proud of you.”

“I—I… thank you.” Savage was _haggard_. The barbarian that Sidious had found on Dathomir had been lean and hungry, but this was something more: this was a sickness of the soul. If Sidious had been in the same room as him now, he’d be able to smell his desperate fear of the Jedi on his skin. As it was now, he had to settle for imagining it.

He congratulated himself on a well-chosen approach. That the Witches of Dathomir were able to utterly possess their slaves if they so wished through dark magicks was common enough knowledge in certain circles, and surely, Savage had grown up in fear of it. It had almost been too easy to convince him that the Jedi would take his mind, and apparently, it had wrecked him. It had been an inspired idea, too, to give him the holo-emitter that made him look Iridonian and happy and masked his force presence. The way he looked now, terrified and ill, he would surely have drawn the eyes of the Jedi.

“You were brave, to risk so much even though you were barely to blame for what happened! Your brother thanks you for it.”

“I…” A beat. “Maul doesn’t think so.”

“I’m so sorry, my dear. I warned you that the Jedi would sink their mind-raping claws into him. Did he go to them? Betray our plan? Did we fail?”

“No.” A rustle, barely picked up by the holocomm. Savage flinched. “No. That was—nothing. That was nothing right now. I was subtle. He doesn’t know I’m here to—to… rescue him.”

“That’s very good. Well done.” In truth, Sidious had almost expected him to fail. Savage had been too easy, too stupid, too eager to let himself be manipulated, for a task such as this that required a modicum of subterfuge. Sidious was pleased to find out that he had been wrong.

“What do we—do now?”

“We will proceed as planned, Savage, surely. I shall meet you at the orphanage. Tomorrow. Do not be alarmed if there’s no-one in there. I would never risk a child’s life, and I’ll try hard to get everyone evacuated. Just in case. You must find a way to get him out of the Jedi temple. Unconscious, if you have to. It will hurt, I know, but remember, Savage… you need to save him. He’s been a prisoner, ever since he was abducted from your house.”

“I know,” Savage said. He swallowed. “Sheev. I know.”

Yes. This would do nicely.


End file.
